Square adds hardware with iPad-powered register

Mobile payment service Square is expanding its hardware line with the launch of a product, Square Stand. The device allows clients to use iPads as a point of sale, turning it into a fully functioning register. The stand provides a card reader and can connect wirelessly to other hardware devices needed by businesses such as cash tills, receipt printers and bar code scanners. Retailing at USD299, the stand goes on general sale July 11.

Square says it chose to focus its hardware on iPads as they now represent 50% of the USD15bn total payments processed by the company. It also claims that the average payment volume processed by iPads is more than double the average processed by clients using its smartphone hardware. It already counts 13 businesses with a total of 30 locations as clients using its new hardware, as the firm continues to disrupt the payments market.

“We have taken something that is ugly and mechanical and made it look like a consumer product that is very sexy,” says Square CEO Jack Dorsey.

Last year, Square raised USD200m in funding, which it has used to hire former US trade Representative Demetrios J. Marantis to oversea its international expansion and PayPal executive Alex Petrov as VP of partnerships.

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